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Get Juiced

OK, it’s time to come clean. Sarah and I aren’t very good at eating vegetables. Despite the CSA box and good intentions, it’s just really hard to get excited about vegetables, unless there is quite a bit of cheese and/or ranch dressing involved. And even then, it can be a stretch. But we know how important it is to eat fruits and vegetables, so it was with that in mind that we decided to take the plunge into juicing. We’re only a few weeks in, but it really has changed things around here. It’s easy, it’s fun, you feel good about yourself, and you probably should! Look at me, I just drank 5 handfuls of spinach. Spinach!

Look at it go! Chewing up those apples and spitting ’em out.

We had thought about buying a juicer for some time, but we were hesitant to make the investment. Juicers can be pretty pricey. Two things helped sway us. First, we tried some pretty vegetable-y juice at Kramer’s (a health food store near where we work) and discovered that vegetable juice isn’t totally disgusting. Hey, maybe we could start juicing! Second, I happened to read a pretty excellent review/essay on juicing on wirecutter.com, which pointed out a good, mid-priced juicer. This was an immense help as the options out there can be overwhelming, with a large range of prices and juicer types. For a juice novice, it’s pretty hard to make any sense of it.

So we ended up buying the Omega 8003 for around $200. This is a mid-range juicer, but it comes with a 10-year warranty and feels like it’s built to last. It’s basically a big motor with an augur attached to it that crushes whatever you put into it, extracting the juice and expelling all the fibrous bits. It makes short work of any kind of leafy green you give it, but is a little bit hesitant around some fruits and more watery vegetables like cucumbers. Overall, however, we’ve been pretty impressed with it’s performance. It’s also quiter than I was expecting. It’s a slow methodical crushing — not like a blender or some centrifugal juicers. This is ideal, because it will keep nutrients intact and not allow too much oxidzation to occur, allowing your juice to stay fresher longer.

Fresh juice on left, fibrous remains on right.

So thats a bit about what we’ve been up to — getting juiced! Later we’ll share the first juices we’ve been making and how we’re feeling about our investment.